What Makes Affirmative Action Seem (Un)Fair to Caucasians?

Polls and studies consistently show that White Americans show the lowest level of support for Affirmative Action (AA) policies. Opponents of AA often argue that this is because it violates principles of meritocracy. Indeed, there have been numerous legal challenges to AA on the grounds that it is “reverse discrimination”. Supporters have noted that self-interest (rather than merit) could explain Whites’ opposition.

In a new paper, my coauthors (Jun Gu, Monash University; Karl Aquino, University of British Columbia; Tai Gyu Kim, Korea University) and I tested these explanations against an alternative one: namely, that Whites’ fairness judgments are based on both the adversely affected person’s race and the fairness evaluator’s ideological beliefs.

In three separate experiments, we presented a total of 804 White study participants with a scenario in which either a more qualified White or Asian male job candidate was rejected for a job in favor of a relatively less qualified Black male candidate. Each experiment described this scenario for a different type of job: a university professor, a sales representative, and a police officer. After reading the scenario, participants were asked to evaluate how fair or unfair they thought the decision to hire the less qualified Black candidate over the relatively more qualified White or Asian candidate. The qualifications of the White and Asian were held constant so we could determine whether people would evaluate the fairness of the decision differently depending on the race of the adversely affected party.

The results? Across all three types of jobs, we found that Whites who were ideologically opposed to social equality judged the hiring decision as more unfair when the White was rejected for the job in favor of the Black candidate than when an Asian male (who had the same qualifications), was rejected. However, Whites who strongly endorsed a social equality judged it more unfair when the Asian was rejected for the job than when the White was rejected.

Put another way, both those who strongly endorse equality and those who oppose it are biased, albeit in opposite directions: those who strongly endorse equality are biased against Whites; those who oppose equality favor them. Our results suggest that neither self-interest nor meritocratic explanations can fully account for Whites’ opposition to AA.

These findings shed light on one possible explanation for why political conservatives, who tend to reject policies that try to increase social equality (such as Affirmative Action), might be more angered by cases that could be perceived as reverse discrimination against Whites than political liberals, who tend to support social equality enhancing policies, even if a member of their own race is adversely affected as a result.

The problem I see with AA is that its underlying assumption is that under performance of certain minorities (not Asians of course) is due to racism or being underprivileged, which has been shown to not usually be the case.

“Our results suggest that neither self-interest nor meritocratic explanations can fully account for Whites’ opposition to AA.” So as you say then it is racism.

What you said you observed was that “we found that Whites who were ideologically opposed to social equality judged the hiring decision as more unfair when the White was rejected for the job in favor of the Black candidate than when an Asian male (who had the same qualifications), was rejected.”

And you don’t think those results are influenced by meritocratic reasoning? You are aware of the fact I presume that Asian people are hired to fill quotas for company diversity initiatives, yes? And therefore don’t you think that this may have something to do with the reaction noted?

Companies have diversity groups for everyone but white males. They have leadership training initiatives specifically designed for minorities, defined as anyone that is not a white male. It is in vogue and it is hard to believe that you are wholly unaware of this phenomenon, especially since you have decided to wade into this area of study. And even if you attempted to control for this, good luck. It has been so ingrained into our culture it is impossible to ignore its existence.

Does it not seem then that the very social engineering that you are studying is the cause of this obvious common sense reaction? I have to question if your study suggests anything at all other than it doesn’t “seem” unfair, since clearly it is if a person is being promoted or hired for any reason other than merit.

And the study doesn’t seem to discount self-interest of the other set that are so concerned about socially equality. Did the study involve them not being promoted to a position or to a unknown third person individual white man, who they have been socially conditioned to distrust? And was that social engineering taken into account, which so many white males today are taught to self hate?

Furthermore, isn’t in the self interest of protecting their egos that feeling just for those that believe in AA as just for them to not be as upset as they were in their particular bias?

So, what that invariably impresses upon me is that what you are really trying to suggest is that there is an inherent racism in white men of a certain ideological persuasion. You do define them as being against social equality. And of course based on your imposed definition of what that means, they are clearly bad people, no? How could anyone be against equality, right? You also start with the presumption that they the unfairness they encounter is not actual but something they ‘seem” to be happening to them.

But if these same people are defined as being for social equality, in that they believe that all people, regardless of appearance, should have to face the same music, then are they not just people who have different, not less worthy values, based on a particular perception? It makes me wonder then based on your apparent imputed perspective of morality on the study if it is reliable in the least.

You also lumped in with “white” men non-anglo saxon white men I assume?

Brent, you should know better than to add fuel to the racism fire by throwing more logs into it:to make any type of distinction-whatsoever-between any two people so as to attempt to illustrate any appreciable 'differences' about them, is theoretically engaging in the practice of racism.

..any discussion attempting to group people and therefore separate them as repeatedly as you do in the above article qualifies as engaging in racist practices. In essence you are conditioning impressionable minds-that may come to PT looking for leadership or direction-to think and behave in ways that allow discrimination to continue.

It's time to stop talking about differences which only exist on a superficial level.

Finally I must say I am deeply disturbed by someone who practices in this field who is so blind to this reality.

Goes well beyond just AA...the entire culture of liberal whites and non-whites is embolden and feels entitled to smear white males at every turn,make white guys purposely look like imbeciles in every other tv commercial and engage in what is basically a demonization effort and smear campaign which is coddled and pushed forward by the disturbing antics of politicans,race studies/women's studies professors and their white privilige-blame whitey nonsensical BS...i guess society will be able to persue that endeavor until the backlash against it gets steamrollin' and those anti-white male haters end up pissing off the wrong folks...no?